Posted
by
Zonk
on Sunday January 07, 2007 @03:06AM
from the patience-grasshopper dept.

An anonymous reader writes "PC World Senior Editor Tom Spring signed up for 32 online accounts. Then tried to cancel all of them. The most difficult to cancel: NetZero. The easiest to cancel: Consumer Reports Online and The New York Times TimesSelect. His experience was rated on a number of criteria, and highlights the hoops that commercial enterprises put in place to keep their 'customers'. From the article: 'I had a hard time canceling my $5 monthly Gold Classmates.com account, too. I couldn't find any information on how to cancel until I entered the word cancel In the site's search engine. Classmates.com spokesperson John Uppendahl confirmed that there is no other way to find cancellation information. But that was only the first hoop I had to jump through to cancel my membership. Classmates.com also forced me to click through several Web pages reminding me of the benefits I'd lose. Finally my clicking ended at a generic Member Support e-mail contact page containing a blank 'Your Question' field. Though the form said nothing about cancellations, I used it to request that the service cancel my subscription. The next day I received an e-mail message confirming that the service had accepted my request.'"

This is precisely why I use virtual CC numbers. My bank (MBNA, now bought by B of A) allows me to set a limit on the amount of money that can be used, and the expiration date is usually two months in the future. A few companies (most recently Time Magazine) have tried the old trick "Submit a new card number to ensure uninterrupted service", but the truth is, they know that as long as they have a valid CC number they are in a much stronger position.

On a different thread, I personally found Paypal to be the hardest to cancel. The link is buried deep in the Options menu, good luck finding it, aunt Mary.

On a different thread, I personally found Paypal to be the hardest to cancel. The link is buried deep in the Options menu, good luck finding it, aunt Mary.

I just went to Paypal.com, logged into my account, and clicked on the "Profile" link. At the bottom of the "Account Information" window there is a link for "Close Account". From there it asked for the checking/credit card numbers linked to my account for verification. I didn't actually go through that process, because I don't want to cancel my account,

Let me advise you that this is not as good a defense as you think. I did the same thing, and a company that I tried to quit from sent the "debt" (that I did not renew and tried to cancel) into collection, which to this day shows up on my credit record. I don't know if what they did is legal, but I can tell you it's been a huge pain in my ass to try to get this cleared up.

They say "you knowingly signed up and agreed to XYZ unless you canceled, so just because your credit card has expired, doesn't mean you don't owe us." And when you put it that way, I think they're right.

I did the same thing, and a company that I tried to quit from sent the "debt" (that I did not renew and tried to cancel) into collection, which to this day shows up on my credit record.

Order a free copy of your credit report from the Big Three (you can do it easily from http://www.annualcreditreport.com/ [annualcreditreport.com]). When you receive the three reports, dispute the debt on each of them following the procedures outlined in the credit report.

The company reporting the negative information is then required to submit supporting documentation, which often doesn't happen.

Sounds like you may have already tried this, but if not, it's not too time-consuming.

I'd like to add that the link is not "www.freecreditreport.com". Experian has been advertising this link on TV so people think of it before the correct one: http://www.annualcreditreport.com./ [www.annual...report.com]

For example, in the past year two relatives called and asked me why are the reports $39.95 when it's supposed to be free ("freecreditreport" was burned into their brains). I had to point out the blue on blue text that looks like legalese on the left side. They totally missed it.

Can't blame Experian for trying to hijack the process, but it's scummy enough where folks like us just need to spread the "correct" link.

Oh and my all time worst? Time Life.They send you CDs through the post then bill you unless you send them back. Fair enough.. try cancelling.

Wrote. No response. Phoned. Said they'd cancelled... CDs kept coming. Wrote again. No response. Got a solicitor to send them a vaguely threatening letter (also mentioning that any further CDs would be treated as unsolicited mail). They stopped! Woohoo.

*18 months later* CDs started coming through the post every couple of days. Phoned.. no record of my account

Also, since it is the new year, it's a good time to go ahead and request your annual free credit report from all three major credit reporting services. Even if you don't have any reason to dispute any debts on your report, go ahead and get it each year to stay on top of your credit report. It's free for you once per year, so you may as well.
You can save the HTML report so you'll have it handy all year long. It's a good idea to review your report each year to make sure there aren't any mistakes.

Order a free copy of your credit report from the Big Three (you can do it easily from http://www.annualcreditreport.com/ [annualcreditreport.com]). When you receive the three reports, dispute the debt on each of them following the procedures outlined in the credit report.

The company reporting the negative information is then required to submit supporting documentation, which often doesn't happen.

Sounds like you may have already tried this, but if not, it's not too time-consuming.

Let me advise you that this is not as good a defense as you think. I did the same thing, and a company that I tried to quit from sent the "debt" (that I did not renew and tried to cancel) into collection

This is not a bad outcome (assuming you're in the right and don't owe the debt). As soon as it goes to the collection agency, you can send them a letter asking for any and all evidence the collection agency has to back up their claim they have a valid debt so that you can begin your lawsuit against them. Once you do that, they are legally obligated to furnish you with the information within 30 days, and they are not allowed to touch your credit report until after the lawsuit is finished. Unless it's some huge debt, they'd waste more money trying to prove it then it's worth to them, and so they'll fail to respond within 30 days and you're all done, credit report intact.

I've done this on several occasions after companies tried to bully my into paying a fraudulent debt. Works like a charm. They only annoying part is that it's the innocent collection agency who loses here, as they've already paid the original company for the debt. But I guess that's a buyer beware situation for them.

Not only is it a shady business overall, the individuals involved are generally some of the most unethical people you'll meet. Your best bet when dealing with them (in the US, anyway) is to have a good grasp of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the Fair Credit Reporting Act, a recorder for your telephone, and an unwillingness to talk to them *at all* unless they agree to recording the conversations.

and an unwillingness to talk to them *at all* unless they agree to recording the conversations.

I've dealt with these blockheads when nonexistant accounts were turned over to collections, and to a toad, every one of them gave me explicit permission to record the phone calls by stating that "this call may be monitored for quality assurance". Since no one seems to remember the difference between "may" (which includes granting permission) and "might" (which is what they probably meant), record away!

Let me advise you that this is not as good a defense as you think. I did the same thing, and a company that I tried to quit from sent the "debt" (that I did not renew and tried to cancel) into collection, which to this day shows up on my credit record. I don't know if what they did is legal, but I can tell you it's been a huge pain in my ass to try to get this cleared up.

And follow the link to the creditnet.com message board. That forum is VERY good at helping to get credit reports cleaned up. Getting invalid derogatory info off you credit report is usually a piece of cake, and if it is difficult they can tell you how to get a quick $1K out of the company that reported it (there are government regulations they have to follow, and if they don't you get free money). If the debt reported is valid, there is still a decent chance to get it removed (either because the company doesn't maintain proper documentation or fails to follow government mandated procedures for responding to complaints/inquiries).

This certainly isn't the case in the UK any more. It used to be part of the agreement, but was removed quite a few years ago (at least 10). You find a number of businesses do charge an additional fee (usually a percentage) if you pay with a credit card.

I had a NetZero account some time ago, as a dial-up account to use when I traveled. (This was before all the hotels started offering wi-fi.) The funny thing is that I didn't cancel it, instead they canceled it on me... When my credit card number changed (twice), they only attempted to contact me via my NetZero email account - which of course I never looked at. The first time the card number changed I happened to discover it and fixed the problem, asking them to contact me at a different email if it happened again; the second time, I didn't notice and they never tried.

I'd just like to "Amen" this one. I tried for days to get a live human on the oh the phone, but never did. When they'd call me, wanting their money I'd cancelled payment on (my bank is nice...), I told them I wanted to return their router, but they wouldn't let me do that, either.

Whenever I encounter a situation like this (where cancelling is made a pain in the ass), I vow to never again use the service, and to tell anyone I know about what a crappy company it is.

I have actually returned to companies that did not make my life difficult in this way. Sometimes, you just don't need the service. Maybe you will be a return customer. But when they do this crap, they piss people off. They ensure that you will NEVER return and that you will do everything you can to spread the word about what a worthless company they are.

Whenever I encounter a situation like this (where cancelling is made a pain in the ass), I vow to never again use the service, and to tell anyone I know about what a crappy company it is.

It's just that when you're cancelling the service, chances are you're not interested in coming back. And even if you against the odds do, you're still a fickle customer, who have cost them extra work. Getting rid of you as painlessly as possible for them when you first cancel must be the first priority.

NetFlix is unbelievably easy to cancel, and to restart membership later. The ease of canceling actually played an important role in my later deciding to re-subscribe. You just don't see that kind of customer-comes-first attitude much these days.

There used to be a saying along the lines of 'a happy customer will tell five people, an unhappy one will tell fifty.' In the age of the Internet, that number is a lot more; I've written articles about bad customer service that have had several thousand unique readers.

If I cancel a service, it can be for any number of reasons. It might, for example, be that I am moving house, or going away for a while and will want a similar service when I get back. If it's hard for me to cancel, then when I want a sim

There are billions of people out there. A lot of companies just want to make money, quick. If that means some bad publicity, so be it. Sometimes, even bad publicity can be good for brand recognition. Don't think that putting up bad service is always a bad thing for a company, just because you feel like it. These difficult cancelations don't cost companies squat. It is all automated, and when people really complain, the cancel button on *their* computer is probably very easy to reach. I wish it were otherwise...

It is sad that I have no mod points, because you should get my "insightful" mod.
You hit a nail on it's head. Most companies which practice such behavior are without any future plans, usually just 1-3 year struggle to make some quick money without big investment. Yes, there are big companies who can live such way because they are too big to feel something when ex-customers start to complain about them to others.

I call this the "Psycho Girlfriend" policy. The relationship is over, but she just can't let go. You try and try to put an end to it, but she keeps calling, telling you how good she is for you. Sometimes the only thing to do is to move to another state.

Unfortunately, by the time a company realizes that acting like a jilted ex is bad for business, the guy who thought up the "Psycho Girlfriend" policy has already moved on to another company. Probably with a nice bonus, since all those unwilling customers were adding to the bottom line while his policy was in effect. And at his new job, when he explains his success to his new boss, it sounds like a great deal, and they too implement the policy, and he gets a raise. Lather, rinse, repeat.

In fact, I think this might be an analog of the "single particle universe" theory, in which one particle zips back and forth through time, constituting all physical matter. In a similar fashion, this one goofball is jumping from company to company, making each one into Jennifer Jason Leigh in "SWF". If we could just find that guy and "cancel" him, the world would be a better place...

Unlikely to be shenanigans. Since the normal wank speed of an adult American female is 3-4 strokes per second (SPS), Larry's best effort only lasts for 25-30 seconds. That's well below the US average of 7.9 minutes.

It's definitely not something most people would brag about on the internets, and it does explain his/. trolling style. Let's face it, if Larry was a real performer in the sack, he wouldn't need to be seeking the approval of a pack of pasty-faced blog trolls.

It's interesting that he mentions Consumer Reports as the easy to cancel. When I was buying a car a few years ago, I signed up with them to read reviews and advice. Their term was a year. After I bought my car (a month or two after I signed up), I canceled the account and was credited the pro-rated cost of the time I did not use. It was so easy and honest that I couldn't believe it was really going to work. After it was done, I felt a little bad for canceling service with a company that got something so right from a customer point of view, even when it costs them money.

I'll second the great service with Consumer Reports. Last month, I bought a gift subscription for a family member. A couple weeks later, when I actually informed them of the gift, it turned out they already had a subscription. So I called Consumer Reports up, got through to a human in under a minute(!) and asked if I could get a refund on the gift subscription. After a few basic details (name, address, etc), she simply said "You will be credited within a week. Anything else?" I was in shock and even verified that the process was truly completed. First class service all the way.

Apparently, they differentiate between cancellation, resignation, and suspension, so that they have a 66% chance of keeping your money. And if you ask your credit card company to stop charges, they can fine you $1000 It's all in the contract....

I signed up for the free.Mac trial when I got my Mac. While I didn't get charged anything when I didn't sign up, my.Mac account is still buried within Mac OS X and it pops up from time to time when attempting to configure stuff (iChat, Mail, etc.).

iTunes is the more entertaining one. When I set up my iTunes account, it filled in my.Mac account. When I didn't renew it, I set up another iTunes account. So I have a bunch of songs purchased with one account and a bunch of songs purchased with another account. This sometimes confuses iTunes and a batch of songs are unplayable until I reauthorize my computer with one of the accounts.

(This is why I laugh whenever some MacHead tells me about how they "buy" their music rather than "rent" it. Cancel your iTunes account and see what happens to those songs you "bought".)

(This is why I laugh whenever some MacHead tells me about how they "buy" their music rather than "rent" it. Cancel your iTunes account and see what happens to those songs you "bought".)

There's nothing to cancel, iTunes isn't a subscription service. All the songs you purchase are linked to a Apple ID, which doesn't expire.

Also, you could've continued using the Apple ID created with your.mac account after you cancelled.mac - it continues functioning as an Apple ID. You can even change the email address associated with it, so while your Apple ID may be R3dM3rcury@mac.com, the email address associated with the account could be R3dMercury@fancydomain.org

As for the ID being "buried" within OS X, try opening up the.Mac Preference Pane, and removing your old info.

There's nothing to cancel, iTunes isn't a subscription service. All the songs you purchase are linked to a Apple ID, which doesn't expire.

What happens if you forget the important details like password and username/email address because your computer remembered them for you, and then your hard disk crashes? Is the info to re-access your "Apple ID" recoverable from the music files themselves?

You need to backup your music files and also the "decryption" information. It's stored in the/Users/Shared directory, IIRC. You could, of course, always burn your purchased songs to a regular CD and never worry about any of this.

It literally took me 2 hours on the phone to cancel this service. And an hour and a half of that was actually talking to a real live person.Unbelievable. It probably cost the company $50 in salary, social security, benefits, and phone usage to delay me canceling the service, all for possibly me getting frustrated and waiting 1 more month to cancel the $10 service.

I learned my lesson though. Next time I had to cancel an insurance policy, I simply told them "I've talked to you for 10 minutes. You have confirm

I also found a section of the TOS contract that read: "You also agree not to dispute any authorized charge by True.com or its authorized agents." And "if you fraudulent[ly] report that an authorized charge by True.com or its authorized agents is unauthorized, you shall be liable to True.com for liquidated damages of One Thousand Dollars ($1,000.00) per incident."

Clearly no one is within their rights to dispute authorized charges. That's the whole point of a chargeback -- it's to charge back unauthorized charges.

"No Chargeback" Sales ReceiptsIndependent entrepreneurs have been selling sales-receipt stock bearing a statement near the signature area that the cardholder waives the right to charge the transaction back to the merchant. These receipts are being marketed to merchants with the claim that they can protect businesses against chargebacks; in fact, they do not. "No chargeback" sales receipts undermine the integrity of the Visa payment system andare prohibited.

I recently managed a small family restaurant and two years ago, we finally relented and got a credit card machine service because so many people these days refuse to carry cash on them (sidenote, good luck if a disaster hits and you can't use your credit card for a while due to the electricity/communication systems being out of operation). We were a small 30ish person business with no real leverage to negotiate terms with a credit card company so we're basically told what we could take or have nothing.

I bet they'd get the Most Annoying One golden statue. There is no clear way to cancel on their site. Searching for Cancel in support brings up clever answer:To cancel TiVo service, contact Customer SupportThe "Contact Us"/Customer support page does not mention anything about where to call to cancel, just "Activation" and "Problems". I suppose inability to cancel online (activation is easy) is a problem. Calling them brings up morbid "voice activated system". Getting through it is not that bad, as it underst

Why not write a letter to your credit card company stating that you no longer authorize any charges from the vendor? If they make it that much of a PITA for you to cancel the service, make it a PITA for them with chargebacks.

Personally I just change my bank account once a month. Changing your address once a month helps with the other bills. If you are still having trouble with companies that won't stop billing you for cancelled services just change your name and social security number monthly. If all else fails changing the country you live in monthly is a sure fire cure to billing woes. What if you run out of countries? No problem there are new ones every year. Seems a lot of countries like to change their name too.

A few years back when I was hooked on Halo 2 I signed up for Xbox Live with one of those 3-month free cards you got with certain games. I didn't have a credit card at the time to register the account with so I called my parents and used their CC info. Towards the end of the 3 months I decided to cancel the account, so I called the customer service and they told me that the account would not renew once it had expired. I had even received a confirmation e-mail regarding the closure of the account, a few mo

I asked my secretary to sign up an efax account a few days ago. They claim you can "try it for FREE in one month". And the stupid part, she puts down a credit card number there (It's free rigth?).
So, they charged the credit card fraudulently the next day, even though it's supposed to be a god damn free trial. All right, so:

We try to go to their site, looking for "cancel subscriptions". We search "cancel" and they have 2 links in their help page. But when I clicked on it, it shows nothing (both Firefox and IE 7)

Then we try their web chat. First when I tell the web chat we are cancelling, they give me ANOTHER link for their support chat. Fine. AND THEN, when we try to use their chat, it's broken.
It starts to sound fishy to me up to this point...

We then try to call their support line. It takes forever just to go through the phone menus, and then we were put on hold for 20 minutes. Finally, a guy with distinctly Indian accent answered the call. He did not speak English that, I have to guesstimate what he said. I have to basically just keep saying "I just need to cancel my subscription, no thanks." repeatedly to get him stop repeat the scripted answers.
Anyway... in the end this support guy said he'd give us a refund, but he'd put us on hold again to talk to the billing department. And finally he claimed the support department will refund us "in a few days". Oh yes, takes less than a day to charge the credit card, but a few days to refund...

In the end we spent half an hour to deal with the cancellation. You are free to call their support line, and then see how much time to get to their billing "department".
Here is more efax horror stories [typepad.com]. Don't ever try to use efax in your life time. You have been warned.
How these companies manage to piss their customers is beyond me.

"Oh yes, takes less than a day to charge the credit card, but a few days to refund"

no comment on efax... but... some companies (and the one I work for is one of them) trust the general customer service agent to charge your card but not to give money back.. because they dont want extra fraud going on by employees.. such as putting money back onto their own cards out of the company accounts...

Its a hassle because then the companies typically only have one or a small number of people authorized to put money back on to a card and thats part of what delays the refund.

I've dealt with very bad cancellation experiences in the past, myself. And this article surely proves that I'm not the only one having these problems. It's as if these companies and corporations don't have proper protocols or procedures for cancellation. Not being able to find information on cancelling a service on the provider's own website is totally pathetic. Or, having to call to cancel a service is also very sad in this age of computer technology.

Sadly, I think that it will remain like this for a very long time. These corporations know that if they retain their customers, they'll have more customers in the end. These companies don't care about bad reputations; they rely on their overly cheap and "amazing" deals to attract new customers. The Slashdot crowd is an intelligent and computer-savvy group of people. But the average consumer which signs up for these services might not be, and he might not care about the cancellation process, and he might be influenced by these exit interviews to stay.

Remember, corporations have access to great analytical data. If they continue to make hard cancellation processes, it means that there is profit to be made. That there are people who will stay because of the amount of labor required to cancel.

It's sad. I would really like these business practices to change. I, for once, will never make my hosting services hard to cancel because I believe in having a good reputation and I'm satisfied by the warm emails that I get from happy customers. I'm sure that other Slashdot users who provide some kind of service do the same.

I spent almost a year trying to get my bank to block some merchant from billing my card. I just could not get through to anyone over at this merchant who could / would stop billing me so I did it through the bank. Dozens of phone calls, several days of my time, half a dozen letters, a certified letter, a threat of a small claims lawsuit, and a letter to the CEO later, and they finally did block all those charges, for real. What a horrible payment system. The most important task for a bank is to keep peo

From my experience; You can suspend billing of a Blockbuster Online account from the website itself. They won't bill you again, account remains open, and no futher dvds at sent to you. And you can reactivate billing to continue dvd mailings to you.

Vonage was listed as "No hassle" but I found quite the contrary. You can only cancel over the phone, which runs from 9-5 EST Mon-Fri. This caused a pretty big problem considering I work 6am-4pm PST Mon-Fri (Its a Mill, work scheduled overtime weekly). I figured I could do it over my lunch break. But after calling the number they list to "cancel" I was bounced to another person, and found the waiting time to be over 45mins (at which time I had to head back to work).

Basically I had to wait a few weeks until we had some downtime due to an accident. After waiting almost on hour and a half on hold, the operator kept trying to talk me out of it. I finally convinced her when I said "I JUST WANT TO FUCKING CANCEL". It was silent for a moment and then she said "OK, its all done, have a nice day." I guess I may have just had a unique encounter, but Vonage for me was FAR from easy. They have 24 hour support, but can't have 24 hour cancellations... I wont ever be returning to them. Had it been painless, I probably would have returned to Vonage when I moved.

ServerPronto (if you don't know who they are, keep it that way), was a dedicated server host I used during the (I believe 2005) hurricane season that was active in Florida. I was worried when the hurricane came through, but I had no downtime, no nothing... until a month after the hurricane passed over. Then, the servers died, their support chat disappeared, no responses to email, and their number came up disconnected (yet I got a CC charge two days later). I called everyday for a week and emailed them for a

It's not shocking that companies are doing this. It's very very intentional, as are the apologies and reluctant refunds. They know what they're doing, and it's a very good tactic to get every last drop of dirty money from unhappy customers.

Most people are lazy. They'll just say "oh well at least they won't bill me again" when they see a parting shot from something they cancelled. It's only $15, and my time is valuable i'm not going to sit on hold and talk to someone who doesn't speak english just for $15 right? So the company makes it as much of a hassle as they can, in order to keep an extra $15 here and there. I imagine if you tried 200 companies, at least %75 of them have a policy in place to do the exact same thing. They also have a policy to own up and apologize for it whenever they're caught, by explaining that it was a one-time thing and they're very very sorry and it won't happen again. AOL did it to me several times (it's like I'd have learned my lesson once, but noooooo. Never use AOL as temporary internet access while you're out of town. Free trials are rarely free).

The first place I heard of shady deals like this, of course, were the porn sites. You sign up for 30-days, but of course you're on a recurring billing immediately. If you're not careful, you're also sometimes agreeing to a multi-site pass that costs a lot more than you initially imagined! The porn sites are banking on the idea that you're not going to call visa and ask them to cancel a charge from a porn site at worst, and that you won't even notice the charge at best. If you find out, no problem they won't bill you again (but they won't refund you!). They still get 2 months of money from a one-month sub. It's genius, and it's no wonder "legit" companies have adopted porno site practices.

I signed up for MySpace (yeah. I know.) from an email address with a plus in it.

Wanted to cancel, and the confirmation email never came.

Tried changing my email address (to something without a plus) and the confirmation email never came.

Wrote to privacy@myspace.com like MySpace says to in this situation... it's been 2-3 months and the account is still there.

For a couple of those months the account's name has been the uncensored version of "F*** MySpace" and its profile has been a description of how broken MySpace is in this regard. This hasn't gotten it canceled either.

Once I manage to move the account's few friends somewhere else, I think I'll have to update its publicly-visible goodness with some choice commentary on "Tom," Rupert Murdoch, barnyard animals, drugs, Al-Qaeda, minors, and whatever else, to see if that helps.

I had the same issue.My solution was to upload as much pornographic material as I could then add people as friends. Those people who blindly authorise add's without checking your profile certainly complain fast enough when xxx material appears in their friends list. I also started filling out the 'report offensive material' on my own account.

When I tried to cancel my ebay account, which had no pending sales/buys in it at all, it took from early August of 2005 to October 2005 of acting like an ass to get them to cancel my account. I tried everything, including terms-of-service violations in public to get them to pay attention. I even sent email messages consisting of 1MB (or was it two or three?) each of "Cancel My Account!" It's amazing how much you can cut and paste into an ebay feedback dialog (I found out, because when they reply the quote the whole thing). And even when they finally got around to me, they sent me an email saying that it would take a few more weeks. Just how difficult is it to delete an empty account?

Why did I want it cancelled? Fraud. Obvious out-and-out fraud that I wasn't the victim of, but saw happening, and when it was brought to their attention the silence was deafening. Ebay's utter lack of even basic business honesty really offends me. Microsoft looks like a shining paragon of righteousness standing next to them. Even thinking of it now, more than a year later, a pit of anger is forming in my gut.

I can only think of one reason why they make it so difficult to delete accounts: that it inflates the user base fraudulently. Inactive accounts count as "members" and they make it that difficult to cancel hoping that the user just gives up, which is probably what happens most of the time. It really was insane how much effort I had to put into getting an empty account nuked.

First you have to call them and spend hours on the phone explaining that you want their services cancelled, why, what you think of their service, your bank card, address, etc. etc. then they give you all types of discounts and freebies to make you change your mind when they finally do cancel it by the end of the month, they send you a 3-month free trial which if you don't cancel it, gets automatically activated into a full membership again

That sold websites to small to medium sized businesses, but they did it like a telemarketing company. They were told it would be a trial period and if they didn't like it then they could cancel at any time. The company made lots of money because a lot of the businesses totally forgot about the website and wouldn't know they were being billed until the next quarter when they saw the bill. Some businesses were billed through their business phone company and wouldn't even notice the charge. My friends in customer service said it was stressful because they were required to retain an insane amount of customers and the customers would just go off on them. The company got sued several times, so they ended up audio taping the customers saying yes to the website trial.

I find it odd that True.com would make it difficult to cancel the account. Services like True.com and Match.com are designed to be temporary. "Once You Find you Mate you don't need the service anymore". Making it hard to cancel make me feel that they are not going to try to find a match, which is what I am paying them for. I used match.com myself and when I found my now wife. Canceling the service was relatively easy. Especially in the exit interview I just put down I found my match they just canceled it quickly.

If I sign up for a trial membership or something that requires a credit card, I create a temporary credit card (via my CC account with MBNA, now Bank of America) with a spending limit of only what I need, and use that. If the vendor earns my trust, I change my billing info to a real card. If they don't, well, good luck trying to perpetually bill the temporary card, fuckers!

I also run my own mailserver, so every vendor I deal with gets their own address which just redirects to my main address. When I cease dealing with them, their e-mail address goes away and I never see another message from them. (This is also a handy method to see who's selling their customer databases to spammers)

Unless you expect nobody to ever cancel your paid services, then why should there be a fee to this? With all that work it should be well scripted out and never require administrator level input. If it does then the programmers really fouled up. I should never be charged because the company was to incompetent. If you want people to pay you should provide them with the ability to stop paying nicely, sans fee.

I call bollocks on that. Any system worth its salt runs all that as a single (and fairly atomic) script the instant the UID is removed from the user database. I've built systems where the opposite is the case, we had to add several levels of confirm for an operator to remove an account because the cleanup was so thorough that the moment you hit that return key the final time... boom, no going back. It's also safer that way because removing every service separately by hand leaves far more room for error. Can

I can vouch for this one. The hardest cancellation I've ever had to do was with Gold's Gym. I had just moved back home from another state and wasn't sure how long I'd be here, so I specifically asked the salesperson about cancellation, I was told that it'd just be a $100 cancellation fee (even that is too much, but seemed reasonable at the time for some reason.) 6 months later, I tried to cancel only to find out that I have to show proof that I am moving more than X miles from any Gold's location, etc...

Balls. Even if the service is heavily customised to the end user, all the customisation amounts to is "a limited number of options which the user can have on their account".

Seeing as this information will be stored on a computer, it's not too difficult for a scrtpt to drag up the list of options and erase each one as appropriate. If you're doing this by hand in anything other than a tiny business with customer numbers measured in tens, the problem is yours, not your customers.

Cancelling an account should never take more than a few keystrokes and a button click. Maybe two clicks, the second one being a verification -- but if you've ever watched support handle confirmation screens, you know they aren't going to look at them anyway.

This is what admins are FOR: writing the backend code in the DB (and elsewhere) which ensures that, yes, when a user cancels their account, all traces of them are either removed, or the account is put into a 'hold' status if there are things like (as you said) e-mail addresses to worry about.

And no, there should NOT be cancellation charges on ANY service. Ever. None. Zero.

That is what long term contracts are for. If I say I want one year of service, then I pay for one year of service. Even if I cancel after a month. If the company offers me PART of my money back, cool! I think we are on the same page there in a way - a lot of people see a 50 dollar early termination fee as hideous, even though they are actually getting out of, say, 9 months of a 40 dollar per month service. I just despise situations where I *have* to sign a contract, and I have no power to negotiate and nobody else offers shorter terms.

And yes, I've been an admin at a company that had to deal with such. No, it wasn't shockingly difficult to create the system for dealing with this. Though, I admit it was made easier by the fact that, by law, we had to retain most of the information, and thus didn't have to do much more than null out CC#s and put the user in the inactive bin.

Personally, I'd like to see a law that states 'Cancelling may not be any more difficult than creating.' Four clicks to create? Four clicks to cancel. Big bold 'Create Account' button?... You get the idea. If you can create an account via the web, you can damned well figure out how to cancel one.

It's your problem, not the customer's problem if there is a lot of work to cancel an account. Making it hard for a customer to cancel or charging them to cancel because your cancelation processes are no good is just wrong.

I'd like to add one to that list, though not really a PC online service. Xbox Live.

When I had to leave for college a year or two back, I couldn't bring my Xbox with me (because it wasn't even mine. It belongs to my brother. I brought my Gamecube instead) So when I decided it was better to cancel it rather than pay another $50 for a year of a service I rarely used (I only played a few games, and Splinter Cell taught me to hate 13 year olds like nothing else), for a system I wouldn't have, I went to cancel, but, surprise, Microsoft's web pages have no information on canceling. After a great deal of googling, I found out the only way to cancel is to call a special tech-support hotline. And of course, the operator asked about 15 times if I was sure, and listed so many alternatives ("Maybe someone else up there will have an Xbox."). Thanks to that, I don't think I'll ever play another Xbox (or more realistically, a 360, if I ever get the system) game online ever again.

As a sidenote on the 13-year-old thing, it amuses me that Xbox fans will accuse Nintendo of catering only to children when it is their system that is played primarily by young Halo-loving teenagers while Nintendo caters to the mainstream adult crowd through their Touch Generation products and the Wii. I just find it funny.

I just canceled a real Superpass account I'd been meaning to cancel for ages. It was dead easy. I told them I wanted to upgrade to Rhapsody. It so happens the memberships aren't directly transferable so they have to de-register you from Superpass and then you have to manually sign up for Rhapsody. So they canceled my Superpass but, of course, I never signed up for the Rhapsody. In fairness to them, I understand the Rhapsody service itself is pretty good as far as those subscription music plans go, and also it ties into one of the Sansa products. Their Superpass was also a decent deal (it included 10 purchased downloads a month) until they decided to tack on some useless bonus software as an excuse for jacking up the price. So I think they've got some decent offerings at their core, but if Real ever want to compete with iTunes, they're going to have to quit with the silly/sleazy business practices.

One other thing. People here keep trotting out that VISA Terms and Conditions which says the merchant is not allowed to bind you to XYZ terms (e.g., they can't penalize you for using virtual cc numbers) But if you contractually agree to the penalty, I wonder if the Visa T&C will be a valid defense? After all, just because they've breached their contract with VISA doesn't mean you (necessarily) get to breach your contract with the merchant. Presumably your defense would be fraudulent inducement? Any case law on this?

Just call them, press 0 about a hundred times[1], and tell them you want to cancel your account. If they ask why you want to cancel your account, just be honest. If that's not good enough, start swearing. (I'm fucking tired of your assholes charging me twice what the local ISP charges...)

[1] The old business man trick. If you do it, you'll get better treatment from just about anyone.

I wonder what would happen if a subscriber didn't update their credit card info once their card expires to let the account lapse.

I actually reported my card lost and had it replaced in order to get rid of an Earthlink DSL account a couple of years ago. Even though I (or anyone else) hadn't lived at the DSL location for 6 mos, and the phone line asociated w/ the acount had been disconnected for the same amount of time, they would not cancel the acount, so I did what I had to do.

I had to report a credit card stolen when AOL reactivated a canceled account without my consent.

AOL did not reactivate your account, in your cardmember agreement it tells you that if upon closing if recurring charges still come in that the credit card company has the right to reactivate your account. And by just reporting your card stolen via the credit card you are still leaving AOL with authorization to maintain an account in your name, which means that when they do not collect money from you they can send it to collections.

Why not just cancel AOL, or of course the super-dooper-easy method get your spouse to do it.

I wonder what would happen if a subscriber didn't update their credit card info once their card expires to let the account lapse.

I actually did that with Stupidico "high-speed edition". They actually lodged a complaint for credit card fraud, saying I gave them a false credit card number. Nothing ever came out of it because, well, the credit card has been cancelled...

The most stupid thing is that I had no problem whatsoever opening another account in another city afterwards. Seems their marketing depart

I wonder what would happen if a subscriber didn't update their credit card info once their card expires to let the account lapse.

In a related note, that very thing happened with me with Gold's Gym - my credit card lapsed and I had moved after college. I got a hold of them about the account after finding negative marks on my credit report. I paid the rest of my contract but they didn't tell me that after my contract was completed, I went to automatic monthly renewal. They also didn't tell me that I couldn't cancel that automatic renewal over the phone, neither could I go in person into one of their local locations. I tried to do both of these, visiting their gym when on vacation because I lived in another state at the time. For the phone cancellation, they said that they worried that some joker might cancel my account for me over the phone. I couldn't cancel at one of their locations because they just didn't cancel an account there...which was odd because a whole gaggle of tanned/manicured individuals were there to *create* accounts for people. I had to fax in a signed statement to their corporate offices (for that set of gyms) saying that I wanted to cancel my account.

So, not only did I have to pay for 6 months of gym "service" while living out of state because they had put me on automatic renewal, more bad credit stuff showed up on my credit report.

When I talked to them on the phone about the whole deal, they politely (sarcasm) responded that automatic renewal was in the contract so it was my own fault. So when I moved back to the state where the account was, I opted to avoid their gym like a basket full of snakes and spiders.

Let's give it up for self-serving companies who go to great lengths to sign people up but have to be threatened with legal action or with a public relations campaign to improve their practices in order to avoid destroying their own customers' credit. Btw, I know a guy whose credit was actually completely ruined by that same chain of Gold's Gyms - which btw is in the Salt Lake and Provo/Orem areas of Utah.

I had a similar issue with Sprint PCS a few years ago. They thought I owed them cancellation fees when, according to my contract, I didn't. I didn't hear about the matter from them until some collections idiots started getting a hold of my family asking them where I was. After sending some legal paperwork to three different sets of collections agencies, I ended up filing a better business bureau complaint. A very friendly lady from Sprint called me within days and fixed everything, even getting the cred

I did this once, and my bank conveniently lost my request to cancel the card, even though I delivered a written, signed request to a teller at my local branch. About a month after I thought that I had cancelled the card, I had an ISP bill the card for year service (which I no longer wanted), and when I called the bank to dispute the charge they asked me why. I told them it was because they (the bank) didn't cancel my card. The customer service rep was totally confused when I tried to explain the situatio

If you really did deliver a hand written request to a teller, then after that ordeal I would have closed/moved my account stating that if they can lose letters, I wouldn't trust them to deal with my cheques either.

The easy way to get AOL to cancel is to tell them you are now running a server and it needs to fetch POP3 mail. When they tell you their walled garden e-mail doesn't support POP3, tell them you have to change providers. Worked for us. Your milage may vary.

That's strange, it may be differing corporate policies but I had the opposite when I cancelled with AOL UK 6 or 7 years ago with my 1p a minute dial up account. After 10 minutes or so waiting on the phone, the operator asked why I wanted to cancel my account. I told her to look at the previous bills and she said 'oh wow!' and that was it. Account cancelled without a fight. So all you need to do is run up a huge bill right before you want to cancel and they will be happy;)

I'd have thought they companies would want to know who really doesn't want to receive their junk.

You think this because you are a normal, intelligent person. Marketing people do not think this because they are neither normal nor intelligent.

All marketing people know is that N% of the junk mail they send results in sales. Therefore, in order to increase sales, all you have to do is send more junk mail. Dividing customers into groups like "Might buy from us" and "Won't buy from us" is simply too complica

The other day my US Postal carrier (mailwoman --but that would be an oxymoron) said to me, "I thought you moved --I'm getting all this mail from your address marked 'Return to Sender'(RTS)." I told her that, to teach these slimy junkmail-sending businesses a lesson, I was sending all their mail back. She said that any bulk mail marked "Presorted", which is most of them, is sent at a discounted rate that doesn't cover the cost of the RTS service; anything marked RTS is brought back to the mail processing p

So, you can get this form from the post office that declares that you don't want the junk mail from that one particular source. You also need to bring a sample of the junk mail. My wife found it all on the web, so it's there, but again I'm too lazy to Google for it.

Take out the Business Reply envelope and the paperwork. Tear your address off, and throw those pieces away. Tear up the remaining paperwork into pieces small enough to fit into the Business Reply envelope. Insert pieces into Business Reply envelope, and seal it. Drop into public mailbox. Voila!

With any luck, Capital One will get charged extra for having so much extra in the reply envelope. And the only pieces you have to dispose of are the ones with your personal info.